Pearl Buck - Patriot

Bunji laughed loudly and I-wan smiled. Within himself he still felt complete quiet. Moment by moment, that was how he wanted to live now. He found this moment amusing, but nothing could excite him, however strange.

“Here is your room,” Bunji said. “It is next to mine — see, it opens on the garden!”

He drew a latticed screen aside, and I-wan saw a small square room. There was no bed, nothing but a bamboo armchair and table and in a recess a scroll upon which was written a poem, and beneath it a branch of budding hawthorn in a green vase. There was no other decoration, until Bunji slid another screen away, and there was a corner of the garden. The wall was only a few feet away, but a dwarfed maple tree grew against it, its buds scarlet, and beneath was a small pool scarcely two feet square, and beside it a rock.

“No one will come here except the gardeners,” Bunji said. “It is quite your own. And when you are ready to sleep, clap your hands and a maidservant will spread your quilts on the mats. Our midday meal will be ready in half an hour and a maidservant will bring you water to wash yourself. I will come back.” He put out his hand in a quick foreign fashion and I-wan put out his and they shook hands.

He sat down when Bunji was gone and looked about him. The house was still. Everything was so still. He could hear the soft sibilance of distant sliding screens, and a low murmuring voice somewhere not near. The house was ordered, like the garden. There was no dust anywhere. The bit of garden seemed a part of the house. The few feet of grass were green and clipped, lying like a carpet where the polished floor of the room stopped. He felt wrapped about in peace. Life here was planned. There were lightness and clarity and absolute cleanliness, and in spite of fragility a feeling of long-settled stability. Precisely this life had been lived here for generations.

He was glad he had come. He had no plans now of his own. Perhaps he never would have again. Why plan, when hopes and plans could disappear in a night, as if they were mists? He felt very tired and he sat down on the edge of the floor, his feet upon the grass, and sat gazing at the water, his mind empty and his heart still.

At last he heard someone cough beyond the screen, and he called “Come!” and then Bunji came in wearing a soft dark silk kimono. He looked entirely another person, gentler and somehow more the son of Mr. Muraki. On his arm he carried a dark purple length of silk.

“I thought you might like to put this on,” he said.

He held up the garment and I-wan saw it was another kimono. But he did not want to put it on.

“If you will not count it rudeness,” he said, “I will put on one of my own robes.”

“Do,” Bunji replied. “I thought only to rid you of the stiff western clothes. Good for business but not for pleasure!” He laughed. Then he turned to look into the garden while I-wan put on the robe of blue silk he had brought with him. The last time he had worn a robe had been in his own home.

“Now,” he said, “I am ready.”

Bunji turned. They stood, two young men, looking alike in their darkness of hair and eyes, and yet so different. I-wan was taller by half a head than Bunji, and his body was more slender, his face more oval, his hands and feet more delicate. But Bunji’s body was the more powerful and strong.

“In reality,” Bunji said, “our clothing is not so different. What I wear is the ancient dress of your people. You wear their modern dress. Ah, I have not seen it! Is it comfortable? Yes, I see it is. It fits you closely, and the sleeves are not so wide. That is what I dislike — our wide sleeves. But of course our dress is very pretty on the girls. Wait until you see my sister. She is a moga — that is, a modern girl — at heart, but at home my father will not allow it. I, too, think she is not so pretty in western dress. Come on — you’re hungry. I’m always hungry!”

He ended everything with a laugh, this Bunji. Now he led the way to a large square room, facing the main garden. At the door he paused and bowed to his parents who were already there.

“Mother, this is I-wan,” he said.

I-wan bowed to Madame Muraki. He thought, “I have never seen anyone so beautiful.” She did not look at all like his own plump mother. She was very slight and her face was sad and her eyes were full of a strange dead patience. Yet although she was more than fifty and her pompadoured hair was gray, her face was smooth and she wore a faintly purple robe of plain heavy silk. When she bowed her little body seemed to crumple at the waist over the wide sash of deeper purple satin. Then she straightened herself like a flower after wind.

“Hah,” she breathed, “I am so glad you are come! Will you sit down? And forgive my poor English, since I shamefully never learned Chinese.”

“I hope I can learn Japanese quickly,” I-wan said. “Then I may speak in your language, Madame.”

“Hah!” she answered softly, smiling. It was assent and echo.

They sat down upon the silvery mats about a low table, facing the garden. There was no decoration in this room either, except for latticed screens and a scroll in a recess and a long low dish of narcissus in flower beneath it. The air was cool and fresh and the whole atmosphere light and quietly gay. A rosy young girl came in with a tray of bowls. No one spoke to her. She set a bowl before each of them and went away. As soon as she had gone Bunji burst into such laughter that his parents smiled.

“That is my sister,” he cried. “She is shy and she won’t eat with us today. But she will get over it.”

“Shall I speak to your sister?” I-wan asked, smiling. “Is it your custom?” To be courteous, he had not looked at the young girl.

Madame Muraki in her soft voice spoke a few words I-wan could not understand. Bunji translated, “My mother says, ‘Wait until afterwards. She will come in again.’ Her name is Tama.”

But she did not come again. Bunji laughed again when a maid brought in the next course of fish.

“Tama knew we would tell you who she was, so she doesn’t come in again.”

They laughed together then, and I-wan suddenly felt at peace. He would stop thinking. There was nothing to remember. The air in this house was clean and pure, and the light poured in everywhere, and the unpainted polished woods gave off that delicacy of fragrance in every room. It was all open and clean and everybody laughed easily as though they were untroubled.

“Can you eat our poor food?” Madame Muraki asked him.

“I like everything,” I-wan said. Then he blushed because he had spoken, perhaps, too warmly.

“Hah,” Mr. Muraki said, “that is the way the young should feel.”

Mr. and Mrs. Muraki smiled again gently and he felt himself liked. It was pleasant.

And though there was little talk, no one felt ill at ease. It was as if each person knew exactly what he should do and did it. The meal proceeded to its end of bowls of rice, dipped from a lacquered container, and then tea, and after that Madame Muraki folded herself into a bow like a butterfly closing its wings, and went away. As though he were prepared for it, Bunji looked toward his father, and Mr. Muraki said to I-wan, “Your father has written me that he wishes you to learn our business. If you like, I have planned this for you — that you spend half your time at the business. In the morning you will have a place beside Bunji. Bunji will help you. In the afternoon you may study or play.”

“I am grateful,” I-wan replied. Yes, he was very glad to have his life taken out of his own hands and planned for him, hour by hour. That was the way he wished to live now.

Mr. Muraki rose. “Then it is arranged,” he said. “If you are not happy you will tell me.” It was half question, half command, but wholly kind.